


i can hear the bells

by ernnsts



Series: the bitch of living [2]
Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-24 22:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17713037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ernnsts/pseuds/ernnsts
Summary: ernst has anxiety about talking to hanschen, but he also has an encouraging group of friends (who don't mind their own business)a follow-up to the previous fic in the series!





	i can hear the bells

In five days, it will have been exactly one month since Ernst last spoke to Hanschen. 

More specifically, it will have been exactly one month since Hanschen had kissed Ernst while he was over studying at Hanschen’s house, exactly one month since Ernst had confessed his love for Hanschen by shouting in his face like a madman, and exactly one month since Ernst had gathered his things in a flustered state and gone home suddenly, unsure of what to make of the events of the evening. 

Ernst went to school the day after and told all his friends, avoiding Hanschen’s gaze from across the cafeteria and for the first time in his life feeling grateful that they didn’t share any classes together, because… well, he didn’t really know. He should have been happy that his friend that he’d had a crush on for the past two years reciprocated his feelings—and he _was_ happy—but now that they had actually started something, Ernst didn’t know what to do about it.

He felt flustered and embarrassed whenever he saw Hanschen in the hall at school, he felt hot when he saw him at church, and when he thought about him—his soft words, his soft lips, and his hand on his waist sneaking lower every second—Ernst was sure he would faint. He was terrified of screwing it all up before they even got anywhere, and therefore the solution was to… avoid Hanschen at all costs for the rest of time? _Awesome!_

It wasn’t even as though Hanschen hadn’t tried to speak to him; Ernst was just practically structuring his whole day around avoiding the confrontation. After around the second week since they’d kissed (thirteen days after, to be exact), Hanschen stopped trying to get his attention at school, and the most interaction that they’d had with one another was extremely fleeting eye contact as their parents spoke to one another after Sunday morning service.

At this point, he was certain that he had utterly destroyed his chances with Hanschen in a romantic sense as well as completely forfeited their friendship due to his own incomprehensible anxiety surrounding what everything between them meant, and now that the school year was over and he no longer had the excuse of going to Hanschen’s house to study, they were certainly never going to speak again. _Great!_

“Ernst, are you good?” 

Ernst looked up from where he had been staring blankly ahead for who knows how many minutes to see Melchior, who was cleaning up the snacks from their D&D session that had just ended a half hour ago. He looked like he knew the answer _and_ the reason, but he was always surprisingly delicate about these things. 

“Oh—yes, I’m fine, thank you. It’s just—”

“Hanschen?”

Okay, he wasn’t _that_ delicate—but he’d also been trying to convince Ernst to just talk to him for the past month, so Ernst guessed that he was probably long past the point of beating around the bush, if he had ever been the type of person to do such a thing to begin with. In any case, Ernst nodded affirmatively, then looked over to the couch where Georg and Otto had been trying to wrestle the TV remote away from Moritz to see that all three of them had stopped to look at him when Melchior mentioned Hanschen. 

“Are you gonna talk to him?” Otto asked. 

“I—”

“No excuses.” Melchior shook a bag of pretzels at him threateningly before he rolled it closed. “You both like each other, dude; what are you so worried will happen?”

“Something going horribly, horribly wrong? Eternal shame and embarrassment?” Moritz answered for him and used the distraction of the conversation to wiggle free from Georg and Otto’s grips. He stumbled away from the couch as he did, then folded one arm across his chest once he got his footing.

Ernst pointed to Moritz and nodded. _He gets it!_ “See! Moritz knows—”

“But, for the record,” Moritz continued, waving the remote around on each syllable for emphasis, “I don’t think anything _will_ go horribly wrong. I just, uh, know how he feels.” 

Georg opened his mouth to offer his opinion, but Ernst timidly held up a hand to stop him as if to say _please, give me one second._ “It’s too late for me to talk to him, anyways. I waited because I didn’t know what to do, and now it’s been a month and I haven’t said more than five words to him since then, so there’s no way that he doesn’t hate me by now.” He sighed dramatically, covering his face with both hands. 

When he peeked through his fingers, he saw Melchior roll his eyes. “Come on, Ernst. You’re forgetting that I’ve actually talked to Hanschen since then. I can’t have one conversation with that dude without him asking about you.” 

_Really?_ Ernst didn’t want to show it too much, but that did make him feel a little better. “But...what would I even say to him? And how?”

“Hanschen, I’m in love with you, do you want to make out?” Otto suggested, and Georg and Melchior nodded in endorsement. Moritz cringed, but he didn’t offer any better ideas.

“Ernst, you’re missing a major opportunity here,” Georg cut in finally, making an insistent gesture with his hands as if the next thing he was going to say should be obvious to everyone in the room. When no one finished his thought for him, he rolled his eyes and elaborated, “You’re the only one of us here other than Melchior that actually has a shot at getting laid. I will never forgive you if you don’t follow through with this.”

Ernst cringed and gave him a dubious look. “I don’t think that’s really appropriate…” he mumbled, but blushed at the idea anyway. It wasn’t like he had never considered that; in fact, the past month was an absolute nightmare for Ernst’s active imagination and delicate sensibilities. He wanted to run his fingers through Hanschen’s hair again, taste his lips again— _get it together, Ernst! All your friends are here, dummy. You can’t think about Hanschen’s tongue right now, thank you!_

“I think...that you should go talk to him right now.” Moritz said suddenly, causing Ernst to jump when he realized that Moritz had sat down beside him on the floor while he was busy thinking about Hanschen. 

“Right _now_?” Ernst reached forward to the coffee table to pick up his phone and check the time. He looked back over to Moritz with raised eyebrows. “It’s nine o’clock!”

Melchior fell back onto the couch in between Georg and Otto, shrugging. “So? I agree with Moritz; his house is only a few doors down—it’d only take you, like, five minutes to talk to him.” 

Ernst groaned, wanting to argue but honestly having nothing to say, and knowing that the situation had reached the point that no one was going to drop the subject until he gave in.

“Melchior, are you sure he won’t be mad at me? Positive?” 

“One thousand percent. If you don’t go over there right now, I’m going to text him and tell him to come over here.” 

Now that idea terrified him more than anything. Ernst loved his friends, but the last thing he wanted was for all of them to be witnesses to whatever confrontation occurred between himself and Hanschen.

“Okay, fine!” He stood up suddenly, driven less by confidence and more by the sight of Melchior slowly drawing his phone from his pocket. 

He smoothed out his sweater and took a deep breath. Moritz looked up with him with as much of a reassuring smile as he could manage, while Georg and Otto watched him with raised eyebrows, seemingly surprised that all it took to convince him was a low-stakes threat from Melchior.

Melchior walked over to Ernst and put his hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eyes with a dead serious expression that made Ernst feel a little intimidated. “It’ll be fine, Ernst.”

He spun him around and walked him up the basement stairs with his hands still on his shoulders, while the other boys followed and shouted out words of encouragement in typical loud teenage boy fashion; most of which were completely inappropriate—but their enthusiasm did make Ernst smile, for what it was worth. 

When they reached the front door, Melchior let go of one of Ernst’s shoulders to swing it open, then gave him a little push onto the porch. “I better not see you in the group chat again tonight unless it’s to say everything worked out and you’re spending the night at Hanschen’s house. See ya!”

Ernst turned around just in time to see Melchior give him a thumbs up as he pushed the door closed. He heard the sound of the deadbolt locking on the inside. _Oh, so he’s serious._

Despite now being locked out of Melchior’s house and having nowhere else to go except Hanschen’s—which was just at the end of the cul-de-sac—Ernst stood on the porch for a minute or two just looking around as if he would find a way to vanish and go somewhere else if he just thought about it hard enough. After he finally came to terms with the situation he was in, he stepped off the porch. It was a small amount of progress, and he was dragging his feet with each step away from Melchior’s house, but it was progress nonetheless. 

His phone buzzed twice as he reached the sidewalk in front of the house, and he pulled it from his pocket.

 **Melchior!** : _i’m calling your mom and telling her you’re spending the night at my house so she doesn’t have to come pick you up LMAO godspeed. you are the beast you worship_

**Moritz!!!** : _good luck :-)_

Ernst turned back to look at the house, and jumped at the sight of all of his friends watching him from the living room window. Moritz, Otto, and Georg were each giving a thumbs up, and Melchior winked at him as he pointed to his phone which was held up to his ear. Ernst responded with a timid little wave, before looking away and walking at an excruciatingly slow pace toward Hanschen’s house. 

His excruciatingly slow pace quickly evolved into a power walk, however, as Ernst suddenly came to realize that it was 9 PM and _very_ dark outside. With the fear of being murdered quickening his step, his plan to think about what to say on the way to Hanschen’s door didn’t quite work out, because he ended up on his front porch about thirty seconds before he had originally intended to.

_Well, this is it._

The lights were still on inside, so he couldn’t pretend that it was simply too late and walk back to Melchior’s house and proclaim that he tried to no avail—not that he was any good at lying, and not that Melchior would accept that as an answer, anyways. He raised a trembling fist and knocked on the door softly, so quiet that he himself could barely even hear it. He stood in silence for a few seconds while doing deep breathing exercises, then knocked again with a little more effort. 

That time, he heard someone approach the door from the inside, and his heart was pounding in his chest. _Please, Mr. or Mrs. Rilow! Take pity on me and answer the door so I can embarrass myself in front of your son by telling him I love him again!_

But it was neither of them who answered the door. Of course not. It was Hanschen. Ernst was suddenly worried that he might pass out. _Or I can just embarrass myself right away for convenience, I guess!_

Ernst stared at him for several seconds and then looked down to his feet, sure that he couldn’t bring himself to talk if he was looking directly at Hanschen. When he finally did speak, his voice was meek, hardly above a whisper. “I thought—I didn’t think of what to say. I thought that one of your parents was going to answer the door and that would give me time to think of what to tell you, but I didn’t have anything prepared to tell them for why I came here so late, because it’s summer now and we don’t have to study so—” 

“Ernst.”

He took a deep breath and finally looked up again to see Hanschen and that little amused smile of his. 

“I’m sorry, Hanschen, I—”

“You don’t have to apologize.” Hanschen began to reach forward, then hesitated slightly. Eventually, he reached out and took one of Ernst’s hands in his. Without thinking, Ernst squeezed it. “I should be the one to apologize; I thought that I had scared you off.”

“You did!” Ernst cringed at his own words, then shook his head quickly, squeezing Hanschen’s hand a little tighter and taking a half step closer to him. “I mean— _you_ didn’t, but I got scared. I love you, Hanschen, and I have for a long time—I didn’t want to mess everything up. It was just so unexpected and I needed time to think, and then I waited so long that I thought you hated me and I—”

“—love you.” 

“What?” _Did I hear that right?_ Ernst’s eyes widened, and he suddenly felt weak in the knees. Hanschen tugged his hand, pulling Ernst against him.

“I love you, Ernst. I didn’t say it before.”

Ernst leaned back slightly to look at him properly. He slipped his hand from Hanschen’s, then moved both of his hands up to either side of Hanschen’s jaw. He stood up a little taller on his toes and kissed him—one that only lasted a second, but a kiss nonetheless. As he withdrew, Hanschen leaned in, prolonging the kiss for just a moment more. 

They both stared at one another for several seconds. Ernst thought that at any moment he would wake up at home from another frustrating dream, and it would be four days until it had been a month since the last time he spoke to Hanschen—but no matter how long he stared, the situation didn’t become any less real. 

Before Ernst could say anything just to fill the silence, Hanschen put one hand on his waist and drew him in for a more proper kiss, his other hand coming to a stop on the back of Ernst’s neck. Ernst was once again in a position of being extremely aware of his own hands, which were currently pressed flat against Hanschen’s chest—and a thought suddenly occurred to him. A thought other than _Oh my God, oh my God, there’s his tongue again,_ that is.

As casually as he could manage, he moved his left hand up and behind Hanschen’s head, where he ran his fingers through his hair. Hanschen’s grip on Ernst’s waist tightened by a fraction, apparently encouraging him to continue. Ernst, who was usually very prone to backing down from challenges with very little prompting but who was also determined to make up for having left in a flustered rush the last time this happened, felt emboldened by Hanschen’s enthusiasm. He grasped Hanschen’s hair, and gave it an experimental tug. 

Hanschen groaned softly. Ernst blushed all the way back to his ears. _So he likes—_

At that same moment, Mrs. Rilow’s voice called out from inside the house, and Ernst jumped back so quickly that he surely would have fallen off the porch and concussed himself if Hanschen had not placed his hand firmly against his lower back to stop him. “Hansi, who is that at the door?”

Ernst’s face was burning hot. _Did she hear…? No, she couldn’t have… could she? ...Wait, did she say Hansi?_

Hanschen grinned at him and rolled his eyes as if he could read his mind and knew that he was, as always, overthinking the situation. “It’s Ernst Robel, Mama,” he called back, as casually as if he hadn’t just moaned into Ernst’s mouth fifteen seconds prior. 

“Oh, Ernst! Hello, honey—come in! How are you?”

“Hello, Mrs. Rilow. I’m—” he shot a glance to Hanschen as he walked in the door, “I’m really good, actually.”

Hanschen winked at him and laid a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him toward the direction of the stairs, presumably to prevent Ernst from politely staying downstairs and talking to his parents all night. 

“Well, that’s good! Goodnight, you two.” Mrs. Rilow responded from the living room.

“Oh—um, goodnight Mrs. Rilow! Thank you for letting me stay!” He called as he climbed the stairs. A second passed, and Ernst looked back over his shoulder at Hanschen with an amused grin, whispering under his breath, “ _Hansi?_ ”

Hanschen rolled his eyes but smiled anyways, giving Ernst’s shoulder a light shove. Ernst just laughed. For once, he didn’t feel quite so worried about what the future held for him.

—

A little later, while Hanschen was downstairs to get a drink, Ernst suddenly remembered what Melchior had said about the group chat and fumbled to pull his phone from his pocket. 

**the power of god and anime** [Ernst]: _hey guys!! everything worked out :)_  
**pope 2: now with pubes** [Melchior]: _we know lmaoooooo you can see hanschen’s porch from my window_  
**the power of god and anime** : _😨_

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to find me @ernnst on tumblr!


End file.
